Hidden True Crime - I Was in Court for Richard Allen’s Appeal- What the Cameras Missed | Delphi Murders

Episode Date: September 24, 2026

Richard Allen is appealing his convictions for the murders of Abby Williams and Libby German, and Hidden True Crime was inside the courtroom as the Indiana Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the Delphi murders case. Lauren Matthias breaks down what happened inside the hearing as appellate judges questioned Allen’s defense attorneys and the State about his confessions, the lack of a traditional police interrogation, the unspent cartridge evidence, excluded defense expert testimony, third-party suspect evidence, the defense’s Odinism theory, the search warrant and other alleged trial errors. What did the judges push back on, what arguments appeared to get their attention, and could any of these issues ultimately result in Richard Allen receiving a new trial? This episode takes you inside the courtroom and breaks down the biggest moments from Richard Allen’s appeal. Sponsors: Article-Thanks to Article for sponsoring this podcast! Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit https://www.article.com/discount/hidden and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. Hims-Ready to reach your goals? Visit https://hims.com/hidden to get a personalized, affordable plan that gets you. About Hidden True Crime What started as a simple conversation at their dinner table became a captivating podcast. Join the dynamic duo of Dr. John Matthias, a criminal psychologist, and Lauren Matthias, an investigative journalist, as they delve into the psychological facets of unthinkable crimes every week. Their unique perspectives and in-depth analysis offer a fresh take on true crime storytelling. Thank you for your support through sponsorships, subscribing, listening, and becoming a Patreon member at⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon.com/HiddenTrueCrime⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Is that correct? Hello, gems. I am back in Delphi, Indiana. It's actually been two years. Can you believe it? Since I attended Richard Allen's trial daily, I reported nightly from this very table. Yeah, that's where we are.

We have a nicer set now, as you can tell. But we are back. And the reason that we are back is because Richard Allen's case, was back in an Indiana courtroom this week, and I was there. And even though Richard Allen or Rick, as his attorneys call him, has already been found guilty in the murders of best friends, 13-year-old Abigail Williams and 14-year-old Liberty German, and even though he's been sentenced to 130 years in prison, yeah, long prison sentence, his attorneys are asking the Indiana court of appeals to throw that conviction out, give him a completely new trial. I have everything you need to know

about what went down inside that Indianapolis Supreme courtroom. What you could see and what you couldn't. What was hidden. We'll go through all of it. Before we dig in, full disclosure, after several weeks of listening to witness testimony and doing the evidence as I, again, attended Allen's trial daily, I personally believe that the jury got it right. And I know, wait for it, don't turn me off yet. I know that some of you disagree. And that is okay. Do not go. Please know, this is a safe place to disagree. And this episode is not going to be about what I think. I personally wish, honestly, the trial have been televised. I believe in transparency. But when it comes to Monday's hearing, here's what matters.

This hearing isn't about guilt or innocence. Thus, it doesn't matter if we see this case differently. What does matter is if Richard Allen got a fair trial, which is a vital part of our justice system and something I believe we can all agree on. So this hearing is it's not about putting the evidence back on trial. It's not about the evidence. It's not even about if the trial court made any errors. I know that sounds confusing because you think, yes, it would be. No, it's not about if the trial court made any errors.

They may have. In fact, I'll say they did make errors. The more specific question at hand is whether the trial court made errors that were serious enough to require a new trial for Richard Allen. If you are interested in what I saw every day in his 2024 trial, you can check out our Delphi playlist as well as our full backstory. I will pin that in comments and in the description of this episode. It is honestly a crime that tore this beautiful little town in half, but nearly a decade. later. They are healing. It's good to be back. But Allen's attorneys had several issues that they brought to the appeals court. But there are three main areas at the center of this appeal. So first, they're challenging the search of Allen's home. His attorneys argue that the search warrant was

based on information that was misleading or incomplete, including claims that investigators left out or altered important facts when they asked for permission to search Richard Allen's House. So if the warrant itself was constitutionally defective, the defense argues that evidence obtained from that search should never have been allowed into the trial. And then there are Allen's confessions. This is a controversy. This is probably, honestly, the biggest pieces of their argument, because Alan made a staggering number of incriminating statements while he was being held before trial. so many to so many people. His attorneys, they argue that those statements, those confessions, should not have been admitted because of the conditions Richard Allen was held under,

including extended solitary confinement and because they say he was experiencing a serious mental health crisis at the time. The state, meanwhile, has argued that Allen continued making incriminating statements even after his condition improved with medication. So there were many again. And then there's a defense itself. Allen's attorneys argue that Judge Frankel, a trial attorney, prevented them from presenting a complete defense at trial, including evidence and testimony surrounding their theory that another group

may have been responsible for the murders. The defense, remember this, had pushed an odinist or Norse paganism related theory. The court, though, ultimately ruled that there wasn't enough evidence or connection or nexus between odinism and the murders. There are also arguments involving evidence the defense says should have been allowed, including testimony and material they believe could have helped the jury understand Allen's behavior and challenge the state's case. So that brings us now to the actual hearing. It was Monday, which Monday was yesterday at the time of this recording. We stood in line beginning at 5 a.m. It was raining. We were huddled under this small canopy above the courtroom doors until they opened at 7.30. We still all absolutely got wet. But we were then led into another line in the courthouse. And then we were led into the courtroom around 9.15 a.m. Libby Germans family was there. Several who did want to attend public-wise. They could not get in. The line was really long for the public.

But the crowd that did not make it in, they stayed outside the doors of the courtroom listening to the audio. Put a pin in that because something really interesting happened. And then detectives who had been working on this case since 2017, the entire investigation and those that testified in trial, they were also in the room, including the now retired superintendent, Doug Carter, who once said to the then unknown killer in a now well-known press conference, We believe you are hiding in plain sight. Directly to the killer who may be in this room. We believe you are hiding in plain sight. For more than two years, you never thought we would shift gears to a different investigative strategy, but we have.

We likely have interviewed you or someone close to you. We know that this is about power to you. And you want to know what we know. And one day you will. A question to you, what will those closest to you think of? They find out that you brutally murdered two little girls. Two children, only a coward, would do such a thing. Later on, Richard Allen was arrested and indeed was hiding in plain sight.

So let's go through everything that happened, what Allen's attorneys argued, but the state pushed back on and the questions the appellate judges had for both sides. Attorney Mark Lehman opened by asking the appeals court to take a broad look at what happened to Richard Allen. So he described the entire case from the investigation through the trial as unprecedented, unfair, and unconstitutional. He immediately laid out the defense's basic theory, which is that Allen was placed in extreme conditions before trial, his mental health deteriorated dramatically, and the state then used statements he made during that period against him. Lehman argued that Alan was taken to what's commonly referred to as

the whole and left there until he became severely mentally ill and gravely disabled. According to the defense, the state knew what was happening to him, but continued fighting to keep him in isolation anyway. And that Lehman argued is what makes the confession issue so important. He also connected that argument to the bigger picture of the trial. The defense believes the jury was essentially given only one version of what happened because Judge Frenge Fregle prevented them from presenting evidence of maybe another suspect or a group who could possibly be involved. A Saudi defense. Some other dude did it. An alternative theory, in other words, of those involved in the murders. Judge Vedic asked Lehman what he considered the defense's strongest issue and his answer was interesting because he didn't pick just one what's your strongest

issue judge i think the unfair uh the suppression issue and the unfair trial um are both strong issues but i would say it really depends on the judge um there are certain issues that if you want to write a very narrow opinion that seems to me be very simple and easy to write is the motion to correct there's Napua Air, that if you want to say that this behavior stops here in Indiana and that you want to draw a line that this should never happen to another Hoosier again, then the confessions issue is sitting there. If this court wants to address the very unique, fact-specific components of this case, the third-party issue is there as well. So the short answer, Judge, I think we had a lot of great issues in this case, and that's why the briefs are so long.

Let's start with the confession and the voluntariness of the confession. What's the standard of review here? The defense argued that the appeals court should review the voluntariness question, meaning the appellate judges don't just defer to the trial judge's legal conclusion. They independently review the issue under the proper legal standard. Judge Altieuson asked something really, I think, important, which is if the trial judge, that's judge goal, ruled that Allen's confessions could be evidence, was it then not the jury's responsibility to decide whether those

confessions were voluntarily given? I've mentioned it before, but we have been doing a lot of work behind the scenes on our hidden true crime studios this year. I think you've seen some of it. We finished Dr. John's studio. We've now been completing redoing my studio, and it's made me realize just how much the furniture can change the entire feel of the space. We used article for John's desk, chair, and a side table. And now that we've lived with those pieces for a while, I'm even more impressed with them. They feel substantial and sturdy. This is nice furniture.

They look beautiful on camera. And the quality, truly, it's something you really notice and don't always find these days. Article focuses on well-designed, long-lasting pieces. and they also offer fast shipping and professional assembly options. Article is offering our listeners, our hidden gems, $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. So to claim, visit article.com slash hidden and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout. So it's article.com slash hidden for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. Does the jury decide? Do we believe this confession? Is it reliable? And how much weight should we

give it? Well, the defense argued that before a confession ever gets to a jury, the judge has to decide whether it was given voluntarily under the law. So in other words, were the circumstances surrounding that confession so coercive that the state should not be allowed to use it in the first place. So if the judge decides a confession can come into evidence, that's when it becomes the jury's job to decide what they think of it. Do they believe it? Does it make sense? Is it reliable? How much weight should the jury give it? And Judge Altice really pressed the defense on this. He essentially asked, well, couldn't the jury hear Allen's confessions, hear about his mental state, which they did hear about, and then decide for themselves whether those confessions were believable? The

said yes, but he also argued that that misses the defense's entire point because the question is, is this confession believable and should the state have been allowed to use this confession at all? Those are two different questions. Lehman pointed to the people who interacted with Alan while he was incarcerated, including someone whose job, as he put it, was solely to listen to Alan. His argument was that the jury shouldn't have heard much more about the circumstances, surrounding those statements. Judge L.T.S. kept pressing him on that distinction, though, and asked whether the jury could have decided the confessions weren't reliable.

But I'm trying to figure out what role did the jury have in determining whether or not that confession was voluntary. I mean, they could have said, this is an involuntary confession. We're going to throw this out. There's a general credibility instruction that the court gives. And so the jury could have made that determination. Is that accurate? The jury could have made a determination that the confessions were not. credible, but the United States Supreme Court and Robinson says, let's not confuse the difference between a credibility assessment and a voluntary assessment. And DF does a good job of elaborating on why this is important. We don't care about whether they're true or not, because the voluntariness

inquiry is a judicial limitation that we say it stops here. We don't, you don't get to hide credibility assessments and reliability assessments in the voluntary analysis. This is what the United States Supreme Court said. And then Lehman pointed to what the defense says was another major problem with the judge's decision. He argued that the judge put the burden on the wrong side. So in other words, it was not Richard Allen's job to prove that his confessions should be thrown out. According to the defense, it was the state's job to prove that those confessions were voluntary and could be used against him. And Lehman, Lehman says that wasn't the only problem.

When deciding whether a confession is voluntary, the judge is supposed to look at the entire. situation surrounding it, what lawyers call the totality of the circumstances. So basically, what was happening to this person when they made these statements? And the defense argues, you cannot answer that question without considering what was happening to Richard Allen mentally while he was being held in isolation. Because by April, there was really no dispute that Alan had deteriorated significantly and was experiencing psychosis. So the defenses are. argument is you cannot separate the confessions from the conditions and mental state in which those confessions were made. I'm wondering if the state improperly placed the burden of proof on

your client. It absolutely did. And two times in the judge's order, finding that the sub-adetements shouldn't be suppressed. It applied the wrong burden of proof. And it reversed it. It put the burden on my client to prove that his statements were voluntary by a preponderance. The standard is that the state must prove that the statements are involuntary beyond a reasonable doubt. That's been well established here in Indiana for years, and it remains good law in Indiana, and the judge apply both. But her problems with that order don't stop there. She also used the wrong legal standard. She said that she applied the totality of the circumstances test, But at the hearing, she excluded the most important piece of evidence in the totality of the circumstances.

They knew what they were doing was deliberately indifferent to his mental health and causing him psychological pain. The I-pass order and the settlement agreement, that's what they signed off on. You're right, you caught us. What we're doing by keeping mentally ill people be in solitary confinement? When was the I-pass agreement? When was that established? When did that get signed? Did Your Honor, offhand, I don't recall?

But it was a couple years after this case it occurred. Is that correct? No, I believe that the I pass, the order, and the settlement was... I was thinking it was 2012. Yeah, it was 2012, and then, like, they had the settlement agreement, and then it ran... 2011 to 2012 is what my co-counsel advises, Your Honor. I believe that then they...

wants the settlement it continued there on. But the duration of the settlement agreement didn't change the law in Indiana as to what they were supposed to be doing. The law was keeping people in solitary confinement with serious mental illness is detrimental to their mental health. It causes psychological pain and their life hangs in the balance. So this is where Lehman started digging much deeper into Allen's prison records and his deteriorating. mental health. And Judge Brown raised another important question. Alan had been repeatedly placed on suicide watch. So how, she asked, could the state also maintain that he wasn't seriously, mentally ill if he's on suicide watch? Lehman's answer was simple. Well, you can't square those two things.

And from there, the defense began laying out just how severe they say Allen's deterioration became and why they believe that matters when looking at the confessions he made during that. time. In fact, on April 14th, their Dr. Martin, who hadn't seen him for months, shows up and sees that he's incommunicado on the floor covered in feces, in filth, that he's got feces coming out of his mouth, that he's basically almost a vegetable. He says, he's SMI, he's gravely disabled, I need to forcibly medicate him, and he makes a finding in that order because he has to, he has to document before he forcibly medicate someone, that the symptoms were starting April 4th of 2020 of 20 of 20 of his injury so he's administered ultimately three doses of

held all over a period of three months right I think it was there was a fourth in there's three that were the standard regimen I think there was a fourth emergency one in there to as well your honor but yes what happened after June because the concession stop was he receiving medication then after the he he after June he continued to have some mental health problems because he's a major depressive disorder was he on medication yes what kind of medication that i don't i don't know offhand what medication was he on oral hal doll do you know i don't know if he was on there oral halal or not your honor after the june forcible howledal injections had ceased because at that point they finally felt that he no longer was gravely disabled

and that they could medically justify the um the um the Howell? Have you ever, have you found a case from any jurisdiction where a person wasn't interrogated, yet there was a confession, admitted or not? The short answer is, yes, Your Honor. So interrogation is this concept of where they're engaging in speech where they're trying to extract a confession. Spano says that we balance. So is there a case where there isn't some sort of questioning? No. Is there cases that probably don't involve interrogation? I think DF probably didn't involve interrogation.

But here, what's interesting, Your Honor, is Spano says that when you're evaluating coerciveness, you look at the tactics that the office, excuse me, that the state used with the individual characteristics of the person, their mental health. What makes this case so unique is the feedback loop that they created here. They broke his mind and his will through their coercive tactics, and then when they saw it start to happen, they actively resisted. What were their coercive tactics? Your Honor, I think that, one, putting, we argued in the brief that the coercion begins anytime you put someone in solitary confinement. But coercion is always, it's a constant evaluation under the totality of the circumstances, and here is where I think things got at their worst. They knew that once a man starts to decompensate and experience psychological pain, it's an emergency,

life hangs in the balance, and you need to put them in a medical treatment unit. And what did they do? Trial counsel filed an emergency request that our man is in trouble on April 5th. They delayed nine days and then misled the court. They characterized trial counsel's pleading as colorful and dramatic. The same day they made that filing with the trial court, April 14th, Dr. Martin arrives at that cell and finds a man covered in feces and capable of communicating seriously mentally ill, gravely disabled,

and then the judge denies their request, their emergency request, which they were statutorily entitled to a hearing on. The judge denies it because they submit an affidavit calling their allegations colorful and dramatic. But then the judge raised an important problem for the defense. Allen did not make all of his confessions during this time period. There were statements made at different times after and before. And confessions made at different facilities. And even after Allen had been considered statements.

So Judge Vedic essentially asked, are you really saying that all of the confession should be thrown out? And Lehman's answer was, yeah, all of them. His first argument was that the trial judge's original ruling was so flawed, wrong legal standards, wrong burden of proof that the appeals court can't know what the judge would have decided had she analyzed the confessions correctly. But Lehman said the defense's strongest period is April through June when Allen's mental health records document his most severe. deterioration, and he was being forcibly medicated. And he pointed to something he believes is significant, that once the forced injections ended and Alan's conditions improved, the confessions largely stopped.

There were later confessions, including one in February of 2024. The judges pointed out that Allen had been considered stable by then, but Lehman argued that Allen was still isolated, experiencing mental health problems. And then the judges got into what I think is one of the more important questions in this argument. It's a question I certainly have, which is if nobody was interrogating Richard Allen, there were no police trying to get a confession out of him. How was he being coerced into confessing if nobody was asking him to confess, right? There wasn't a detective

sitting across from him asking him to confess. Police were not questioning him, pressuring him for answers or demanding that he admit to killing Abby and Libby. They were not. Nobody was. These statements were made to other people while Alan. was incarcerated. They included his wife, his mother, people involved in his care, those watching him to make sure he didn't self-harm, multiple people. And so the state's position or response to the defense is, where is the coercion? If nobody is interrogating Alan or trying to extract a confession from him, how can the state be accused of coercing him into making a confession? How could these confessions not be voluntary? Different days, different months, different facilities,

and to different people. That is where the defense's argument, though, becomes more unusual. Lehman acknowledged that this wasn't a traditional interrogation. Instead, he argued that the conditions of Allen's confinement were themselves coercive. That prolonged isolation contributed to Alan's psychological deterioration and that the state continued to keep him in those conditions, even after it became clear how badly he was deteriorating. So this really became the disagreement. The state says nobody was trying to make Richard Allen confess. The defense says they didn't have to be.

The conditions themselves were coercive, they say. So essentially the defense is asking the court to look at the whole environment surrounding these confessions rather than asking whether someone pressured Allen during one particular conversation because I don't think that's anything that they can say happened. And that led to another really interesting question by the judge. What if the state never intended to get a confession this way, right? That was never their intention. In other words, the state did not put Richard Allen in this environment to even get a confession

that wasn't on their mind. That's not what they thought was going to happen. So if the state never intended a confession this way and it was never their intention, then is this a good argument? because the state says Alan was kept in restrictive housing for his own safety. It was not to break him down and get a confession. It was for his own safety because this was an extraordinarily high profile case. He was accused of killing two children.

And officials say they were trying to keep him alive and protected, right, from other inmates. He was never going to go into Jen Pop. I think many of us know the weight loss can be frustrating because it can feel like you're doing all of the things that you're supposed to do and still not getting where you want to go. And at some point, I do think that it is fair to ask whether there are other options or tools that might help. Weight loss by HIMS offers access to FDA approved GLP1 medications, including the WIGOV pill and the Wigobi pen. So through HIMS, the entire process, it happens online. You connect with a licensed provider who determines whether treatment is appropriate for you,

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the registered trademark of nova nordisk as and to get started and learn more including important safety information we go be clinical study information and restrictions visit hymns dot com so judge vedic asked does the state's intent matter so the state said they didn't intend this to happen What they were trying to do is safe keep at the time. Does intent matter? Intent, it's totally of circumstances. I think intent is a relevant factor for consideration. They intended to actively fight for him to get help.

The record couldn't be more clear. The trial lawyer said, my God, he may die, he needs help, emergency. I'm talking about the state's intent. The state's intent is to say, okay, we've got a guy who, it's a big case, It's a big case. Yeah. We're going to put him in safekeeping. We're going to put him in safekeeping.

He's fine there. All right. We're not intending for him to make any kind of confessions. We're intending to keep him alive. Yeah. They... Does the state's intent as to what they did? Does that matter?

It's relevant to the circumstances, but I think that we don't need to establish a nefarious intent of under the Indiana State Constitution, that the authorities that we cited in that regard don't require banks and Robinson don't require willful or deliberate intent on behalf of the state. Let me ask you this. So if the confessions are ruled by us to be inadmissible, what proof does the state have?

Did anybody ID Richard Allen as bridge guy? No, Your Honor. Nobody IDed Richard Allen. And there's no DNA evidence. There's no DNA evidence. They want to make this case about when Richard Allen was on the trail system rather than the better question, which was, was he the only man there? And the answer to that is, no, he wasn't the only man there. And you didn't get to present the evidence of the other man who was there at the trail.

You disagree that that document is hearsay and that there's a plethora. case law saying that that type of thing should not come in. Yeah, it's identification. It's- My question is- Absolutely. I don't think there's any authority. When someone, can you imagine-

There's case law out there that talks about whether or not a sketch, an artist sketch, is admissible. There is. And I think that- The recent case law, though, is to say that the artist's sketch is like a picture. And if someone says it's a fair and accurate representation, then it comes in.

But she doesn't identify him. Nobody identifies him. identifies him as the bridge guy, as you just stated. Betsy Blair identifies this man as bridge guy, and he's not our client. But at trial, no evidence, no evidence was put forth of someone saying, Bridge Guy is Allen. That's right. But you want to know who got identified as Bridge Guy?

Brad Holder. Lehman says investigators received tips early in the case pointing them toward Brad Holder. Some tipsters reportedly thought Holder resembled. bridge guy or that his voice sounded similar to the man that was recorded or filmed on the bridge by Libby. The police investigated him, looked at his alibi. They ultimately cleared Brad Holder, but the defense argues that new information surfaced later that should have caused investigators to maybe take another look at Holder.

Lehman told the judges that Holder had posted images on social media involving dead girls with sticks placed over their bodies. He also pointed to a run or combination of runes that Holder had drawn on his hand. The defense believes that the marking resembled the way the sticks had been arranged over Abbey's body at the crime scene, where the girls were left. And that became the heart of the defense's argument, even if investigators initially believed the holder had an alibi, did this later information create enough of a connection, connection that the jury should have been allowed to hear about him. The judges then started picking

apart the timeline. They were looking at the period between approximately 245 in the afternoon and 408 p.m. when the murders happened. The defense discussed the records that appeared to placeholder at work and later at the gym. Judge Vedig pointed out that if Holder really left work around 245, his workplace was only roughly 30 to 40 minutes from the crime scene. So theoretically, there was a window. But he was, he, he checked out at work, timed out, and then he timed in at a gym. Yeah. And there's a very short period of time. How short? 2.45 p.m. versus 4. What, what, 4 something, 4.08 p.m.? Yeah, it's a, it's a pretty short turnaround about what you, you had said, Your Honor. But our, and then to kill two, two girls during that time. You know, I'm going to use my

discretion here and let us talk about the other two issues. Yeah, and you'll get more time. I'll make a motion, Your Honor. If you may, I don't agree with that. Well, go ahead. Okay. Go ahead. Did you have a question or I can proceed?

Oh, yes, Your Honor, you were asking me. Well, 245 p.m. to 408 p.m. Is that the relevant time frame? I believe it is roughly. But that, he didn't clock out at that time is our argument. What time did he clock out? I'm not sure if he went to work at all that day. Because when the FBI shows up to say, she says, oh, look, his badge swiped in and out. He doesn't possess his badge. It's not like here at the State House where you have to carry it with you.

It's on a rack that all these guys. Well, let's assume for the moment he did clock out at 2.45 p.m. Yeah. How far is his work from the site of the murders? He worked in a bridgeport? Yeah, I think it's about 40 minutes, Your Honor, 30 minutes. Okay. Yeah.

So 315. Yeah. Yeah, if the alibi, if he's there at work at the time that their badge swipe says, it can't be him. Okay, I'm trying to say it could it not have been. Yeah, it could not. Well, 245 p.m. 3.15 p.m. Yeah. Doesn't clock into the gym until 408. Yeah. Well, the encounter with the girls was at 2.13 or 2.14, Your Honor.

That was the initial encounter, right? Yes. Yeah. Oh, yes, he could have been involved in the crime. That's my question. Yes, absolutely. He could have reached the crime scene. But he would have been there for a very short period of time.

He could have very easily been muddy, bloody guy. By this point, the defense had narrowed its third party argument primarily to two men, Radholder and another man, Westfall. And the judge has pushed Lehman pretty hard here. Essentially, a defendant can't just point to another person and say, oh, maybe they did it. You know, you can't point to someone where there isn't enough. evidence. There has to be an actual connection between that person and the crime. And in appeals court isn't there to retry the case or decide for itself who killed Abby and Libby. But Lehman said that

that wasn't what he was asking them to do. His argument is, we're not asking for you to decide that Brad Holder killed these girls. We're saying the jury should have been allowed to hear this evidence and decide what it meant. And according to the defense, there was enough of a connection. The even went back to the sticks found over Abby and Libby. The defense believes those sticks were deliberately arranged, not simply random branches lying across their bodies. He then connected that crime scene evidence to what he had just told the court about Holder, the social media posts, again, involving those dead girls and sticks, the runes the holder had drawn on his hand.

And the defense believes this resembled the arrangement over Abby and the earlier tips involving Holder and Bridge Guy. Put all this together, Lehman argued, and there was enough of a connection for the jury to at least hear about Brad Holder. The judges challenged him, though, on this. Was there really enough to connect Holder to these murders? Or would allowing this evidence simply send the jury down a speculative path? And that is really the fight over this part of the appeal. Lehman then went one step further and challenged the state's theory of what happened that afternoon. He argued that the prosecution was asking jurors to believe that Alan, who was a pharmacy tech with no criminal history, who went out for a walk, suddenly murdered two girls, and then spent time at that crime scene, deliberately

arranging sticks over their bodies before leaving. To Lehman, the amount of activity and purpose at that scene was another reason the defense should have been able to be allowed to present maybe another alternative theory. Again, his argument was not Brad Holder did this. It was, there was enough here that the jury should have maybe been allowed to hear about him and then decide for themselves, whether it created reasonable doubt about Richard Allen. We think that the failure to investigate them is the constitutional error and the abuse of the discussion on the judge to not let them, because the state's own evidence from the FBI was that the connection, that the different treatment of the girls, and that's one of the

things that makes this scene so different, and indicates that the killer had a connection to one, but not the other. Within a few days of the murders, they had identified the Pagan Connections, they interviewed two guys that know Abby and And they just, they said no, that's not true. I mean, they first said they're in it, they're investigating that and then they said before Richard Allen even came along, it couldn't be. It's, it probably was not a ritual killing.

Yes, that was a terrible conclusion that law enforcement made and the juror You're asking us really to re-weigh the evidence then, aren't you, to look at this? I mean, it's really clear that when you bring in third parties could have done this, you've got to be very specific because it sends the jury off on a tangent. You need a causal connection. I think Exhibit 42 and 48 show that the stick arrangement on those girls was purposeful, intentional, and then when you look at what holders posting on Facebook of dead girl with sticks on their bodies, that he's got a tattoo on his hand that mirrors the one.

on Abby, that that connection is unprecedented and the jury was entitled to weigh it. Your Honor, respectfully you ask if we're asking you to reweigh the evidence. My answer to that is we're asking that the jury should have had a chance to do it and they didn't get a chance to do it. And when you, it's not public, but as you know, when you look at that murder scene and the effort and the purposefulness and the amount of work that went into it sit so uneasy with their theory that a pharmacy tech with no criminal history went for a walk to do what you would expect a 45 year old man to do,

look at fish and watch the stock ticker, he decided to kill these two girls and then took the time to move 200-pound bodies, change their wet clothes, arranged sticks carefully on their bodies to balance them, and then decided to walk on one busy county road for a mile while being covered in mud and blood? That doesn't make sense.

The man who killed the girls isn't the man who went forward and came volunteered to help out? From there, the judges moved to another major piece of evidence in this case, the unspent cartridge that was found near the girls. Judge Vedic asked about defense expert William Tobin. What exactly would Tobin have told the jury that they hadn't already heard from the other experts? And Lehman's answer was essentially, Tobin wasn't just going to challenge the state's expert's conclusion. He was going to challenge the science behind the conclusion. And by the way, Tobin was also an expert witness at Keelan Armstrong's

trial. But the state's firearms examiner testified that markings on the unspent cartridge were consistent with it having been cycled through Richard Allen's gun. That's true. But the defense wanted Tobin to question whether you can reliably make that kind of identification at all, particularly with an unspent cartridge that was cycled through a firearm rather than a bullet that was actually fired. So, yeah, this bullet wasn't fired. It was unspent. It fell from the gun. The defense, so isn't simply saying our expert looked at the same markings and reached a different conclusion. They also wanted their expert to say the method you're using to reach that conclusion isn't scientifically reliable in the first place.

Lehman was extremely critical of that methodology. At one point, he compared its value to astrology. Yeah. Yeah. His point was that it doesn't matter how confidently an expert reaches a conclusion if the scientific foundation underneath that conclusion is unreliable. Well, Judge Brown brought up something that the Virginia Supreme Court had previously found reversible error in another case where Tobin was prevented from giving similar

testimony. So there's a precedent here. What could Tobin have said other than what was said by the other two experts? Judge, by analogy, we, in Tobin's, if Tobin's in there, the jury gets to hear that the argument between the other two people is like an argument about astrology, when really the argument should be, is this astrology? Because Tobin's going to say, listen, this is junk science. And that this argument, isn't worth the jury's time because you can't find a magic bullet 40 caliber unspent casing out there in the field and apply this AFTE methodology and look at that and say ah this can be matched to something we can create in the lab if we try a few different techniques and fire 10

cartridges and do them in this way that we can match it Tobin has the common sense answer when you find a casing in the middle of nowhere in Indiana in the ground and you find markings on that That's about as valuable as astrology. You can't use it. Well, the Supreme Court of Virginia held that it was reversible error to exclude this Mr. Tobin's testimony. For the same reasons that we're asking. And so the caliber of the casing or the bullet that was found underneath one of the girls was a Winchester brand. And in search of Mr. Allen's home, they recovered only one Winchester brand.

Is that accurate? They found it. I think S&W, Smith & W. I'm not a real gun expert, but yeah, so Smith and Wesson was found in his house. But the branded cartridge, I believe, was Winchester. Then he had plenty other different types of brands of cartridge, but he had one other Winchester brand, and that was found in his home in a collection box.

Describe what that box was. It just looked like miscellaneous things, that there was no, I think, testimony exactly what all else they found in it. Described as a keepsake box. That's their characterization of it. What would you call it? I don't know. I didn't ask, I haven't asked more clients.

It looks like a miscellaneous box in a closet. Yeah. I don't know if it was his wife or his daughter's or his daughter that she left behind. There's a box with miscellaneous stuff in it. Including a Winchester brand 40 caliber bullet. Correct. Same type of brand that's found underneath the body of one of the children.

I would imagine in Carroll County, Indiana, If you did a poll of the houses of men in Carroll County, Indiana, 60% of them roughly probably have the same brand 40 caliber in their house. You know, who also had the same caliber brand, Brad Holder. Yeah. And they didn't collect his. Prosecutor Ellen Milander opened by laying out the state's version of what happened on February 13th, 2017.

That's the day the girls were murdered. So the state says that Allen followed Abby and Lerner. Libby across the Monon High Bridge, forced them down the hill at gunpoint, and ultimately killed them. But the state wasn't only relying on the video from Libby's phone or the image of the man on the bridge that was from Libby's phone. Mylander's central point was that Allen himself had placed himself in the exact area where those witnesses said they saw a bridge guy, like, that is his alibi.

Richard Allen's alibi is he was on the bridge. She argued that Alan identified himself through his own statements as the man who was on the trail that afternoon, the man who passed the girls and the man who was on the first platform of the bridge. And that became the state's answer to one of the defense's biggest arguments. All of those eyewitnesses immediately and unequivocally identified the man that they had seen as bridge guy. The perpetrator captured. Betsy Blair said that he looked like the, the, the, drawing that defense counsel just put up. But she said he matched the picture of bridge guy that was from Libby's cell phone video.

That's, she identified unequivocally as being bridge guy. And she did so based primarily, she said, on the clothing. As she said, she only saw him for moments from a matter of 50 feet away. What she saw primarily was his clothing more so than his facial features. So if she identified him, why wasn't that composite allowed into evidence to impeach her identification? Because as the expert testimony that was presented to the court on that, that issue showed, composite sketches are not properly used to identify or exclude suspects. They're only used as an investigative tool.

It inevitably has artist bias, artist influence in it. And so it's a hearsay statement, not just of Betsy Blair's. She said 10 out of 10 that it looked like. And as the expert said that that isn't even reliable because it's not possible. But as impeachment evidence, that's a whole different story. Well, the defendant was allowed to present the evidence of her description and argued to the jury that that description was not consistent with Bridgett. But a picture is worth a thousand words.

But even so, Your Honor, again, the defendant was trying to use it not for impeachment, but as substantive evidence that he was not Bridge Guy, because it excluded him as being the suspect. And as the expert testified, that is not the proper use of the sketch. just as the state couldn't use it. So the defense believes the actual image would have allowed the jury to see the discrepancy for themselves. The state was saying the law doesn't allow an unreliable investigative sketch to become evidence

just because it might be persuasive. Well, and then the judges moved back to Allen's clothing. Judge Brown asked whether the man in the bridge guy video could be seen wearing a Carhart logo. Milander said there wasn't enough detail to establish a logo. go, but described the clothing as generally consistent with what Alan said he was wearing that day, which was a blue jacket, jeans, and either work boots or sneakers, and then a hat. She said that nothing about the clothing description excluded Alan. Judge Brown then asked about the jacket itself if Alan's Carhart jacket that had been recovered

from his home during that surge, was it ever tested for blood? Mylander said that she didn't believe that it had been. And this is where the state's argument then went back to Allen's own statements. Her position was that the strongest evidence establishing Allen as bridge guy came from Allen himself. Milander argued that Alan admitted, again, to being on the trail. This isn't his confession. This is just like statements he's made.

He was on the trail. Admitted passing the girls. Admitted being on the first platform of the bridge and acknowledged wearing clothing consistent with the person in the video. There is another part of Alan's saying. statements, Myelander found really, really important that Alan had denied seeing Abby and Libby while he was on the trail. So she characterized that as evidence of consciousness of guilt. The state's theory was essentially that Alan wasn't a stranger who just happened to get

swept into the investigation because he lived nearby. He was a man who acknowledged being in the exact area and on the exact time dressed in clothing consistent with the person captured on Libby's phone. And then the state continued that they said that Allen made statements about his whereabouts that investigators could compare against what was known about the girl's final movements. That is why the alibi issue is so important to the state's case. The defense is arguing that if Richard Allen's confessions are excluded, right, not to be evidence. They are excluded from evidence. Then the state will not even have enough evidence to even connect Allen to being bridge guy. And well, the state is arguing the opposite. That Allen's own statements about his alibi and being

on the bridge are precisely what helped establish that connection. So the defense says the conditions of Allen's confinement were coercive. The state says those conditions were necessary for his safety and that Allen's mental illness by itself does not make his statements involuntary. The judges then brought the state right back to the confession issue. Judge Vedic asked what standard the appeals court should use when reviewing whether Allen's statements were voluntary. Milander explained that there are slightly different standards depending on whether the court is looking at the issue under the federal constitution or the Indiana constitution, because under the federal standard, factual findings are generally reviewed for

clear error, while the ultimate question of whether or not his confessions were voluntary gets a fresh independent review. So under Indiana law, however, she argued that the appeals court doesn't just reweigh the evidence. Instead, the judge looks at the evidence supporting the trial court's decision and then asks whether there's enough evidence to support that ruling. Then Judge Vedic asked if Judge Gould, that's the trial judge. If Judge Gull used the wrong burden of proof when she ruled that Allen's statements were voluntary, his confessions? Take a listen. Did the trial court used the wrong standard in her motion to suppress order? No, I don't believe she did because she makes findings, for example, that she's not persuaded by the evidence that the defendant was

caused to make these statements by his mental condition, that while he suffers from certain mental illnesses, that those are not serious mental illnesses that preclude a person from giving a voluntary statement. So she is making an affirmative ruling based on the evidence that the court that the state had shown they were voluntary. They weren't the product of any interrogation, she points out, they weren't the product of any coercive state action. But she goes on to say that... The defendant has not shown this. Yeah. The defendant has failed to show this. Right, that's not his burden. And then she says he suffers from major depressive disorder

and anxiety and doesn't say anything about the psychosis. Well, I think that's because you're on a... that the question of the voluntariness requires there to be coercive state action. And his mental conditions that he entered the DOC with do not rise to the level of being sufficient to make this an involuntary statement if you don't have coercive state action that goes along with them. So is it your position there was no coercive state action? That's correct.

Tell me why. The case law is clear that the ordinary conditions of confinement, even those ordinary conditions of restrictive housing confinement do not constitute coercive state action and are not imposed for the purpose of attempting to extract a confession from a defendant how do you get past the fact that no inmate at Westville I believe it was Westville had ever been held longer than 30 days in a pretrial situation in solitary confinement and he was held 13 months he was held because he could not be safely housed in general population.

And no one ever seriously contended that he could be safely housed in general population. How long would he have made it in general population? I know that's speculation, but not very long, correct? Given the notoriety of his crimes, he couldn't be safely housed in general population. Face it, other prisoners do not care for child ministers and people that kill children, correct? That's correct. And they're quite, quite vulnerable. That's right.

And in this situation, it wasn't the state that said he needs to be housed in a different location, it was the sheriff himself that started this whole application, correct? That's correct. And the defendant has not challenged on appeal any of those procedural issues about the safekeeping order, the denial of his motions to change, and none of those have been raised as issues on appeal. And the conditions of confinement that were imposed on the defendant were not the type that rise to the egregious level that our case law shows is necessary. He had opportunities for out-of-cell recreation, for showers, he was given adequate food, he had access to

He was given regular medical checks, was given all of his medications. He was given an iPad that broke and was offered another one. Is that accurate? That's right, which he didn't have to pay for, which no other inmate would have been given. He could use that to make calls and send messages to family and friends, to watch movies, listen to music, play games. He was offered a television for his cell. He could have weekly visits from the chaplain.

He received regular mental health therapy or visits from Dr. Walla daily while he was on So the implication is that Allen was not completely cut off from the outside world or deprived of every basic comfort or not in what one might consider solitary confinement. He was kept indeed in restrictive housing. Yes, because officials, though, believed that that housing was necessary to protect Richard Allen. But the judges were not letting the state avoid the biggest problem. Judge Vedic asked whether there really was any dispute that Alan had become psychotic by mid-April. And yet no one disputes that by April he's psychotic. Mid-April, he becomes psychotic, that is correct. And he made a number of confessions during that time of psychosis,

and they were admitted into evidence. Do you think that was a proper admission? I do, because I still think there's no coercive state action, but there were only five of them. And even if you found that those five confessions shouldn't have been admitted, the other ones were still admissible, and it would be cumulative and harmless error. If you listen to the phone calls that he makes to his wife on April 3rd and again on May 10th,

to the phone call to his mother on May 17th, he is completely lucid, completely coherent, completely rational in those calls. There's no evidence of psychosis in them at all. Except that in your own brief you say, quote, psychosis ebbs and flows and a person can slip in and out of psychosis in a 24-hour period. Slip in and out in a 24-hour period. Well, of course, in those calls, those are the calls where he's making the statements, and at that moment he is not psychotic.

So the next moment he is, but at that moment he's not? Well, if the rationale for excluding them as involuntary is that he was psychotic at the time, which again, Conley, pedophored cases like that show that that doesn't render them involuntary. But if that's the rationale, then if he's not psychotic at the time he's making the confession, then that confession would be voluntary, even if he would. was psychotic on a different day. Again, the statements to the confessions to Dr. Walla on April 5th and on May 3rd are presented in a very orderly, chronological, coherent fashion.

Dr. Wallace says that he's not psychotic on those days. In fact, in her daily reports from April 6th and April 7th, she still sees no evidence of psychosis on those days. Again, by May 2nd, May 3rd, and continuing on, the mental health reports in the record show no evidence of psychosis on those points or any point thereafter. he's confessing both before and after he is psychotic, the conditions of his confinement are not changing. And he's not promised better conditions if he confesses. He's not threatened with worse conditions if he doesn't confess. He was not on side watch from December of 22 through March of 23.

Well, if you're not worried about his statements and that they were purely voluntary, why keep out the audio on the video that the jury saw? Well, the court kept that out because in the court's view it was hearsay. And I would put it, of those 15 movement videos... Hearsay goes to his mental state, right? State of mind, I think, is what you're asking. Is that an exception? And my question is, how does that exception state of mind play into the fact that it's a statement by a defendant, which is inadmissible during direct evidence?

That's right. So how do those two, and I didn't mean... And let me... Yeah, let me put my little... two cents in here. I think it's not hearsay because it's omitted not for the truth, but to show his mental condition, which is something that the jury has to consider. Yes. There's a lot there. I know. There's a lot. And just as a preliminary matter to it, it's important to point out of those 15 movement

videos, there are really only three of them in which they include extensive speech by Alan. The rest he either doesn't speak at all or says almost nothing. So they basically Richard Allen killed yourself was one of the statements that you could hear another inmate. That's, you can hear other people saying things, that's right. But in terms of his own statements and what they would shed on his mental state. He stated that he was, that he started World War III, that he was a king. I mean, there, there were statements in there. And the jury knew about those statements, many of them, because many of those statements are recorded on the Steguard companion logs or in Dr. Waller's reports. So it's not that

the jury was not given a full picture of the types of things he was saying, the type of of behaviors he was engaging in. All of that was given to the jury to assist for liability. Was it admissible or not? I think the easiest way for the courts to decide that is just to say, regardless of whether it was hearsay or not, that it was harmless. The exclusion of the audio, because of the extensive other evidence that was presented on his mental state, the jury was able to make a full, fair assessment of his mental state to determine whether to give those confessions any credibility or not.

really became the state's larger position on the confession issue. The defense says the jury needed to see and hear Alan in the middle of his deterioration to understand what was happening to him. The state says the jury already knew he was mentally ill, knew about his behavior, heard about his treatment, and had enough information to evaluate the confessions for themselves. So again, the appeal comes down to a very different view of what the jury was actually allowed to consider. The defense sees critical evidence being kept away from the jury. The state sees a record that already contained enough information to make the other exclusions and explains that many confessions were made before or after any psychosis.

And some confessions were also made in different facilities. The judges then moved into the defense's theory involving odinism. Judge Brown asked a pretty straightforward question. Theoretically, if Allen himself had documented connections to odinism, but evidence about odinism and the crime scene have been admissible. Milander said no. Even considering the way the girls were found, the state argued that the crime scene did not support this theory of odinism.

She pointed out that investigators did not find the kinds of physical evidence the defense had associated with an odinistic ritual. She said there was no confirmed ruin carved or painted at the scene. And the FBI's analysis did not conclude that the sticks arranged on the girls were odinist symbols. she pointed to the defense's own expert, Dr. Perlmutter. And according to the state, Dr. Prulmutter could say that the arrangement of the sticks might, might have had some significance to whoever placed them there, but she could not identify the arrangement as a particular room or its significance.

And the state argued that Proumutter's interpretation became tied to the evidence involving Brad Holder, particularly the social media material and the image of a ruin associated with Holder. Mylander then returned to what she considered the most important problem with that theory. With respect to the sticks on Libby's bodies, all that she could say was she believed that they had some significance for the offender. She couldn't say what it was, what symbol they were, what ruin they were, nothing like that. And her belief that the sticks on Abby's body were a bind run was based entirely on the fact that on Holder's social video, media, social media, he had the picture of the ruin he had drawn on his hand that he said was a bind room. But the evidence showed that Holder could not have committed this crime.

He was at his place of employment in Buffalo, Indiana, 25 miles away when Abby and Libby were confronted on the bridge by bridge guy. He was at his place of employment 25 miles away when the cell phone stopped moving at 2.32, which would have been the point in time at which then or shortly after the girls were killed. He could not have been there. He could not have been the person. That was a confirmed alibi. Judge Brown then asked about another piece of evidence the defense had raised the possibility that someone connected to a cell phone headphone jack. A cell phone headphone jack. This is true. In the trial, the defense brought out the fact that it looked as if Libby's phone at the crime scene had connected to a headphone jack. Ultimately, it was suspected that this could have just been something that happened through Apple. But my lander said the defense had actually been allowed to present the evidence to the jury

about the headphones, headphone jack. They did. They presented it to the jury. She argued, though, the defense's interpretation of it did not make much sense. And this is true for me, too. So the defense was like, look, there was something that was plugged into a headphone jack in Libby's phone. So, I mean, it was essentially mean that the perpetrator either remained at the scene for several hours. and then left or left and returned at a much later time. So Mylander called this scenario implausible.

In other words, it kind of veers this headphone jack thing into maybe it was just sort of, you know, something oddly that came up, that nothing necessarily was plugged into the headphone jack, but something happened. Maybe the phone got wet. The last audio output at 5.21 p.m. was recorded on Libby's phone, and Cecil wrote in his report that the audio output was unknown and the research was incomplete. Now, the research in 2024 now is complete. And today it gives some known numeric values. For example, number one means headphones. So this gets interesting. At 2.1317 at 10.32 p.m.

a record was created. And it first started happening at 5.44 p.m. So on February 13th, 2017, at 10.32 p.m., a record was created. And this first started happening at 544 p.m. on February 13th. And this record shows that there were wired headphones. This was also shown in another location in the Knowledge Sea Report where it was hard to see, but it actually literally says, quotes, wired headphones. So then the defense asks. So when it says that the audio output starts at 5.45 p.m. on February 13th, what does that mean?

And Stacey's answer is, so it means that somebody inserted the headphone jack into the whole or the auxiliary of the phone. And that happened at 10.32 p.m. on February 13th, the defense asks. And she states, it definitely says that something was inserted. Question. Can you think of any explanation of this that does not involve human interaction? She says, I cannot come up with any explanation. question. The auxiliary cord headphones, when you plug it in, by doing that, would you stop sound from coming out of a phone?

And our answer is milliseconds before the cable was inserted, there was a call coming in. That's chilling to me. Millic seconds before the cable was inserted, there was a call coming in. Okay, so now we have jury questions and it gets interesting. Would water or moisture affect movement? No. So then, after that, McLean jumps in. What would water affect the port or plug-in for the phone?

McLean asks. She states, I have no knowledge that it would log. McLean says, you don't know? And she says, well, it would make something non-functional, but it would not record info on its own. So then the next witness is Christopher Cecil. Let's, uh, was also a prosecution's witness. Again, phone data expert.

And now, OJ is going to question him now for the defense. So he is back on the stand. He is a first sergeant with the Indiana state police. Again, he's already testified. And she just wants to talk about his report that we've already heard about. So, Ajay asks, there is a log on your report about audio. output. What is that? And he says, I don't know. Her next question, are you able to tell us why a cell phone

would not connect to a tower? He says, I don't have that education. And now we have cross-exam by McLeeland. So that was it for the defense. Cross-exam by McLeeland. He questions, you researched about headphone log? Yes, he says. Well, there was a jury question. about water, right? Yes. He said there was a jury question about water. And were you able to look up on Google why that is during the break? And he says, yes. And you found that water or dirt can impact something. And it's really kind of hard to hear at this moment. And, but in other words, they're saying, so you found water or dirt can impact something. So now there's redirect by Oje. And so she says, this is a pretty good moment in course. She goes, what Google sites did you visit? And his answer? Google sites. Well, any credible sites? Yes, a bunch of sites. He mentions like Apple, some, um, some, uh, sites and some other maybe chat sites. And then she says, well, do you normally do your research by looking stuff up on Google? She says, no. He says, no. He says, no.

Question by OJ. So you usually research using peer-reviewed things, right? And he says, yes. So are there things on the internet that aren't reliable? Yes. And they aren't accurate? Yes. And they are false?

Yes. Was there proof of water damage on Libby's phone? No, we didn't check. And you've had this phone. It's been with law enforcement custody this whole time, correct? Yes. And law enforcement could have checked for water damage? Yes.

And did law enforcement check for dirt and water damage? He says, I don't know. Christopher Cecil says, I don't know. And you and the Indiana state police have had seven and a half years to do this. And you're coming here after a Google search? Christopher Cecil, yes. So she was essentially saying, even if the defense had been allowed to put this into evidence in front of the jury, which they did. They talked about the headphone jack, Libby's headphone jack being, you know, something plugged into it, allegedly.

it didn't necessarily help the defense's case. I mean, it was confusing, and it made people think and wonder how that could happen. And again, I mean, where my personal brain went, I went to, it must have been water. But either way, what does it, what does it mean? The jury had already had the opportunity. They did hear that evidence about the headphone jack. And it's their job to decide whether it meant anything. So Judge Vedic then returned to the central question about Brad Holder once again. Was the trial court wrong to exclude? Odinism evidence because the defense should have been allowed to introduce the evidence about Brad Holder as this other possible theory, that odinism as another theory. Should they have been

able to bring up odinism? Did the court trial court sweep too far and that maybe the ritual evidence wasn't admissible, but the evidence regarding Brad Holder should have been admitted? No, because again, to admit third party suspect evidence, our case law is clear. You have to a direct connection to the crime scene. And not only could he not place Holder there, the evidence affirmatively showed that Holder was not there. Susan Case, the operations clerk for the landfill where Holder worked, testified that it would, in her deposition, that it would not have been possible for Holder not to be there when

his time card showed that he was, because there was a small number of people who worked each shift, the equipment required specialized training, and the workflow of the landfill was such that if one person's machine wasn't operating, that would have upstream and downstream effects for everybody else. And so it would have been noticed if he either wasn't there or if he had said someone in his place to be there. Her testimony precludes the option that he wasn't there and somebody else just swiped his card for him. And again, once Holder goes away, this entire theory of theirs crumbles because it was all dependent on what was on Holder's social media. The judges then moved to Tobin, that expert witness, defense witness, that they were not allowed to have testify.

They wanted this witness to challenge the reliability of the firearms evidence, particularly the idea that markings on an unspent cartridge can establish that it had previously been cycled through a particular firearm. Judge Brown asked why Tobin's testimony had been excluded and Milander explained that the defense wasn't only trying to challenge the state's particular examination of the cartridge. She argued that Tobin was being offered to attack the reliability of firearms identification evidence as a whole. In other words, attack what is backed by research, what is technically science. So Judge Vedek pushed back and pointed out that Tobin didn't necessarily need to establish that the entire field of firearms evidence was inadmissible. He could potentially

go before the jury and challenge the weight of the state's evidence, basically telling jurors why they should not put much stock into the conclusion. But then Mylander maintained that the defense was trying to turn the trial into a hearing about whether firearm identification, firearms identification itself should even be considered reliable science, right? And they did have a witness that was an expert witness, you know, to make people question how reliable this firearms identification was. So the state is saying, look, we didn't want to bring in another expert witness. Judge Badek asked whether this was really just a battle between experts, like one expert saying the methodology could be used and others saying it couldn't. The use for which the defendant

was offering Tobin was really, he didn't ask for a pretrial Daubert type hearing at which he could challenge the admissibility of firearms identification evidence, which is really what to the work goes. He can go and go to the jury and they can then challenge the weight of the evidence. And that's what he was doing with Tobin. Well, except I think the more than that he was, he was really asking the jury to make a determination about whether firearms evidence could be considered at all, which is really an admissibility question that's for the trial. Wasn't it just the battle of the experts? One expert says not possible to do this, and one expert says it is possible? Well, he was allowed to present expert testimony challenging the state's

ballistics. Dr. Warren testified and was allowed to, Dr. Warren does firearms examinations and had looked at Oberg's report in the state's evidence and was able to opine on whether she had done it properly, done it correctly, whether her conclusions were supported by the evidence. So you're now giving up on whether or not Tobin's testimony was admissible? I will, no, I'm not giving up. I don't think it was admissible because I think he was trying to use it for something that wasn't the jury's called me.

I think the trial court in its ability to control the presentation of evidence to not admit evidence that will confuse or mislead was a lot to— The jury can't determine whether or not the science is good science, that once the judge makes the opinion that the science is good, that that's it? Is that what your position is? Our position is that the court could say, I'm allowing you to present evidence that this ballistic test was done improperly, but I'm not going to turn this trial into a mini-trial on the reliability of firearms evidence in Indiana, which firearms has been deemed, identification has been deemed sufficiently reliable in Indiana courts for many, many years.

And Tobin was not a firearms expert. He's a metallurgist. That's right. and he has no training in firearms identification. He has not done any. He had not examined Oberg's report or the evidence in this case. His whole basis is that all firearms evidence is junk science. That's right. And as you stated, we convicted many, many of people in this state

based on firearms evidence over the last 100 plus years. That's right. It's admissible in Indiana. And he was, defendant was allowed to elicit on cross-exam of Oberg and from Dr. Warren some general testimony to the effect that there are critics of this science out there. So to the effect- And that was presented to the jury.

That's right. So to that extent, the jury had that information again to it to assess the reliability and the credibility. Judge Vedic then brought up a case from Virginia involving Tobin, where his exclusion had apparently been found to be reversible error. But Myelander said that she hadn't read that case and relied on the trial court's discretion to determine what expert evidence was appropriate. And then another important question. What if the appeals court disagrees? what if they decide judge goal, the trial judge, was wrong to exclude Tobin? Would that automatically mean that Alan gets a new trial?

If they made an error, if there were errors in this trial, does this automatically mean Alan gets a new trial if maybe goal was wrong to exclude Tobin? Milander said no. She argued no, that even if excluding this expert witness, Tobin was an error by the court, it would be harmless because the jury still had an enormous amount of other evidence to consider. And by the way, there was a juror that was interviewed after, and she did say that the firearm evidence didn't really matter to the jury, which was interesting because I felt like it was a big piece of the evidence. Nonetheless, Myelander went back to the timeline and I witnessed

evidence first. The state's argument was that Allen's own statements placed him on the trail at the critical time and witnesses described Bridge Guy in a way that the state says was consistent with Richard Allen. Then there was the cartridge evidence. There was the Winchester Round found at the crime scene and another Winchester Round found in Allen's home. And there was also the evidence involving Allen's missing 2017 cell phone. Yeah, he had tons of cell phones from the search warrant. One was missing from 2017. So the state says that, investigators found other old phones belonging to Allen during the surge, a lot of other old phones, just not this one particular phone that he had with him on the day of the murders. And then, of course,

there were the confessions. All right. So Mylander returned specifically two statements Alan made to his wife, his mother, and Dr. Walla, the psychologist that treated Richard Allen. So she argued that the record showed those particular statements were made when Alan was lucid and coherent, rather than during the documented periods of psychosis. She pointed to the timing. Judge Vedic noted that Alan had made some of those statements before the prison psychiatrist formally determined that he was psychotic. Myelander agreed and argued that the confessions did not just appear during one prolonged

psychotic episode, which is important. They were spread out. Alan was making incriminating statements before, during, and after periods of his mental health deterioration. And she also offered a possible explanation for why Alan would confess to his family. Again, he confessed to his mother and to his wife. Milander said Alan had undergone a religious conversion and was struggling with the reality of what was happening to him. According to the state, Richard Allen had a psychological need to tell his family what he had done and to find out whether they would still love him.

She pointed to one particular statement Alan made to his mother, which essentially was saying that he wouldn't be telling her about these murders if he hadn't actually done it. We listened to this in court. So, Kathy, tell you that I did it? We're not going to discuss this, okay? Are you there? Yeah, I'm still here.

Yeah. We love you. You know that, don't you? Regardless. Yes. And do you know if Kathy's okay? Kathy's doing okay. We've been holding each other up. You guys aren't going to love me because of the fact that I said that I did it. Ricky, I just know you're not in a good place right now.

And I'm praying for you, and we will always love you no matter what. but just saying it doesn't mean you did it. It does when I did. Rick, don't talk like this. I think they're just messing with you. Mom, they're not. I love you. What are you doing?

I love you too, hon. I just know you don't have it in you to do something like that. Tell you I did it if I didn't. Well, if they're messing with your meds and all that, yeah, you would. but we're not going to discuss the case anymore. So if I did do it, then you guys don't love me anymore? I will always love you no matter what. And that's that you can count on that.

There's nothing that would make me ever stop loving you. And then Judge Vedic asked, what if the confessions come out? In other words, suppose the appeals court agrees with the defense, the Allen statements were improperly admitted. Is there still enough evidence to support his conviction? Mylander said yes, and she went back right back to Allen's statements to police about his alibi. Even without the later prison confessions, the state argued that Allen's original statements, what did they do?

They placed him on the trail and effectively on the bridge and identified him as the person the witnesses had encountered. She emphasized that Allen initially told investigators he had been there during the critical period. He said he had passed the girls and had been on the first platform of the bridge. But then later, his story changed. It did change. Judge Altice pointed out that Alan's timeline in his later interview was different from what he had originally told investigators. So the first version placed him on the trail during the period when the girls were there. But later, he gave a different window of time that would have placed him outside the critical time for him.

So he changed things. Mylander characterized that as that changes as evidence of consciousness of guilt. So her argument was that Alan knew his original timeline was damaging once he became a suspect. So he changed it. She pointed to the timestamps from the girl's activity on the trail and other video evidence that the state says corroborated Allen's original account of when he arrived. Mylander's argument then was that the original timeline was the truthful one. And the later version was an attempt to move himself from the murders once he realized investigators were looking right at him, right, his way. So even if the appeals court ultimately agrees to throw out the prison confessions, the state says the case doesn't suddenly disappear.

Its position is that the jury still had Allen's own statements placing him at the scene, witness testimony about Bridgeguide, the cartridge evidence, the cell phone evidence, and the other circumstances. surrounding his changing story. And then they went back to the prison placement and psychosis issue. So what really disturbs me is that the defense asked for him to be taken out of Westville because he's decompensating. All right. The state comes back and while he's in the middle of psychosis, which the state agrees, they say everything's fine. He's doing well. All right. And the court then doesn't have a hearing and says, we're not going to move them. Isn't that of itself coercion? No. In the first place, it wasn't the trial court's decision on where he would be placed within the DOC. And within the DOC, it was his mental health team, the multidisciplinary

team, at the point when he became psychotic, they did assess and discuss whether he should be transferred at that point. It's in some of the mental health reports that are in States Exhibit 304, where they list the pros and cons of that. And the reason why they decided not to was because they didn't want to change his treatment team right at that time, the people that he had a rapport with that he had trust in. They were afraid that it would be more disruptive to his mental health to transfer him to a new setting at that point. They felt that they could successfully treat his psychosis where he was.

They did. They administered involuntary medication, anti-psychotic medication, and they restored him to his baseline health where he was. And during that time, they were not attempting to exploit his mental health. They were not interrogating him at that time. Dr. Walla had told him, in fact, when he first began confessing, don't, it's not in your interest to say these things. She had told him initially, only talked to your attorneys.

You don't have to talk to me about the case to get mental health treatment from me, encouraged him to get that mental health treatment. The suicide guards were instructed not to converse with Alan to elicit statements from him. Am I right in that? He was in a cell, what, six by 12, eight by 12, alone, with lights on 24-7.

Could he dim the lights? He could dim the lights. Could he take the lights off totally? It's not clear. I think there was a reference to being kind of like a night light, but he was definitely able to dim the lights. That is clear on the record. But the lights were there 24-7, whether they were dimmed or not.

He's outside of his cell, 24-7 is sitting somebody, someone sitting there, recording everything that he says, and videotaping. Is that right? He was videotaped. There was a camera in his cell because he was in the suicide watch cell. That was video, no audio. He was videotaped when he was moving, being transported from one location to another.

That appeared to be done as part of the safekeeping procedure. And this happened for 13 months, which violated the policy of Westville that said 30 days, period. No, it's 30 days. for seriously mentally ill. And the testimony of Dr. Dweger, the head of mental health for DOC, who was Allen's own witness, was that he was not classified as seriously mentally ill at the time of his intake into Westville. It was only the period of psychosis that he was seriously mentally ill. And his diagnosis for that was a brief psychotic disorder with marked stressors, which by definition is a period of psychosis that lasts less than 30 days and

is not attributable to another mental health condition. So I would say that the evidence does not show there was a violation of the policy. How do we deal with death penalty defendants in these cases? People are on death row. What type of liberties do they get? Are they, too, also, placed in solitary confinement for all intents and purposes? Yes.

And again, I think it's important to remember. He was never going to be in general population, whether he was in the county jail, whether he was in another DOC facility. For his own safety, he was never going to be in general population. And they did some things where they could. to try and make his conditions better. They said he was treated better than other inmates in restricted housing. He was given a new tablet free of charge when he broke his first one,

which again allowed him to have contact with family and friends, allowed him to do other intellectually stimulating things. They replaced his window when he complained it was scratched, not something they're doing for everyone. They gave him a couple of in-person visits with his wife, not a privilege given to any other inmate in restrictive housing. Have you seen the videos? Yes. And is it your position that he was treated better? or at least the same as other people in Westville?

Yes. That was the testimony. In a pretrial detention situation where he's presumed innocent? The pretrial detainee normally might be able to be kept in general population, but Allen, for his own safety, could not. So yes, in terms of a pretrial safekeeper who has to be kept out of general population and who at times was on sidewalks. which was a mental health call, not a DOC official call.

When he was on suicide watch, there had to be protections in place again to protect him in his own safety. And that was what was going on. And our case law is clear that those ordinary conditions of even restrictive housing confinement are not coercive state action that renders a statement involuntary. You protected him into psychosis. Your Honor, the record suggests that the psychosis was caused by the combined psychological effect of his religious conversion and his confrontation with the legal discovery, his

meeting with his attorneys on April 3rd. All the contemporaneous observers there said that was the point where his mental health and his behavior suddenly began to change. He had been in those conditions from November of 22 all the way through March of 23 with his pre-existing mental health issues without having any psychosis and without confessing. The record suggests it was those personal psychological pressures that were what caused him to suddenly begin confessing in April. And what you just heard there, by the way, are Richard Allen supporters cheering outside the courtroom.

Again, there were protesters there. There were public there that they could not get into the courtroom, and that is them cheering. And then finally, they touched on whether the Franks hearing was actually necessary. Was there any evidence presented to the jury about feigning or being faking it for all intents and purposes. Did any of the psychological psychiatrist's testimony touch on that? Yes. Dr. Walla said and testified in her reports, initially believed he was feigning symptoms for secondary gain, that he wanted in-person visits, he wanted to move to a different facility.

Some of the guards also testified that they believed he was feigning. Again, now Dr. Wall agreed by the time we get to April 12th, 13th, 14th, At that point, everyone agrees he was psychotic at that point. But as she said, whether it had started as something he was feigning or not, once he became in that condition, it was necessary to treat him, which they did promptly and successfully. There are several other issues that we haven't really touched on in this case. Can you talk a little bit about the defense has indicated that the search warrant in this case was improper? They've asked for a Franks versus Delaware hearing, an old 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case.

Tell us your position on that and whether or not a Franks hearing was actually necessary. And did the trial judge and the offer to prove when they request the Franks hearing actually hear testimony and hear about the inconsistencies in the probable cause affidavit? There are a number of reasons why we say this issue isn't even preserved and I won't take the time to go through them here. Waiver with not withstanding. That's right. To be entitled to a Franks hearing, he has to make a substantial showing that there are false statements or with reckless disregard for the truth, and that they were material to the existence of probable cause. And I think the easiest way for this court to address that is that they were

not material. Even if you take out everything that he says was false from the affidavit and you include everything that he says was omitted, there is still probable cause, which is not a high standard, because we still have his own statement saying, I'm the guy who passed these girls on the path at 1.30. These girls all identified him as bridge guy. And he says, I'm the guy who was out on the bridge shortly before Abby and Libby would have arrived at the bridge. And that in and of itself is probable cause for a search warrant. So none of the rest of it is material to the existence of probable cause at all. And as I said, I think that's the easiest way.

We, again, have arguments in our brief about why these statements were not false, the omissions were not material, but I think that's the easiest way is that he never made that necessary preliminary showing that this would have mattered to the existence of probable cause. Well, after that, the defense got its final 10 minutes for rebuttal. Attorney Lehman immediately went straight back to the defense's central theory. He said, the man who came forward to volunteer to help the police is not the man who killed the girls. He argued that the person the defense believed mattered most was the man in the first suspect sketch. If Betty Blair, a witness on the trail, didn't see Richard Allen, Lehman said,

then the rest of the state's case had to be viewed differently. He said the rest is sound and noise. Lehman argued that the case shouldn't simply be reduced to where Richard Allen was at certain times. The bigger question was, he said, was whether there was more than one man on the trail that day. And was there more than one man? His answer is yes. There was more than one man. He pointed again to the man that Betsy Blair saw.

The vehicle she saw the evidence involving the sticks and the crime scene on that day. And the defense's argument that the scene itself suggested something much more. deliberate than a random encounter involving a pharmacy technician who happened to go for a walk that afternoon. The man who came forward to volunteer to help the police is not the man who killed these girls. It's the man who didn't come forward to volunteer and help the police. It's this man. If Betsy Blair doesn't see my client, nothing else matters. The rest of this is sound and noise. Betsy Blair saw the killer and she didn't see my client. She saw this man. The rest of this is timeline, it's not about a timeline. The question isn't about who was when, who was where

when. The question is, was there more than one man on the trail that day? And the answer is absolutely yes there was. It's the man who Betsy Blair saw. It's the man who drove the car that Betsy Blair saw. It's the man who cares about sticks and how, careful enough to carefully arrange them on the bodies. It's not the pharmacy technician who on his day off goes for a walk. and commits this bizarre crime scene. It's this man. Of course, we have another composite of someone walking away from the scene

down the road with blood on their coat that looks substantially different. Correct. Than this composite. And you look at it, it might be Richard Allen. Or it might be that more than one person was involved. or that might be. I mean, I don't want you to be arguing your case as if we're a jury.

This is not what we're here for. We're here for to decide legally whether there was errors made. Judge Badek pushed back reminding him that the appellate court was not there to decide the case as though it were a jury, which was true. It's what it started to sound like, you know, that he was arguing to a jury. they were there to determine one thing, and that is whether legal errors occurred during the trial. And that distinction became especially important when the discussion returned to Dr. Gratian and the defense's claim that Allen's confessions were false.

Judge Altis noted that the doctor did testify and that the jury heard extensive information about the factors that can contribute to false confessions. Lehman agreed, but said the problem was that this doctor wasn't allowed to take the final step and apply those principles specifically to Richard Allen's confessions. And Lehman said that that distinction was enormous. The defense believed that Alan made objectively false statements during some of his confessions that conflicted with the crime scene. And to them, those inconsistencies were evidence of a false confession.

But even beyond the expert testimony, Lehman argued that the jury never got the full context of what Allen looked and sounded like during the period when he was making those statements. He repeatedly urged the judges to consider the prison videos. The demon described Alan screaming for mercy in the audio, screaming for his father, begging for help. He argued that the videos undercut the state's witnesses who characterized Alan's confessions as coherent, rational, and believable. His argument was that if jurors had heard the audio from those videos,

they could have reached a very different conclusion about the witnesses who testified about Allen's mental state. The foundations for his opinion were far more than just the generalized that his statements were false. But they were specific to Richard Allen. That's what the trial court kept out was his conclusions specifically to Richard Allen. That Richard Allen had made objectively false descriptions when he was confessing. That they were inconsistent with the crime scene. No one doubts that.

And that that is a sign of a false confession. But more importantly, it's the aggregate of all the jury didn't hear about. the confessions. The videos, what we respectfully asked the court to watch those. We've seen it. The screams for mercy or screams for his father. The videos undermine not just the credibility of his confessions, but every single witness that the state put on the stand to say that those confessions were cogent, coherent, clear. They had a man working full-time, listening to to him and saying that his confessions were true because he'd listened to him and felt like they were true.

If the jury hears those videos, if the jury sees the book-in calls, there's no way that they reached the same conclusion that the paid guy who's working full-time to listen to Richard Allen and testify the conclusion he reaches. The jury's going to say that state's witnesses are liars. I watched that, heard the videos. I heard the way he talked to his dad when he begged for his dad's help because you're the strongest man I know. You hear that evidence.

A jury's going to say, the state paraded a bunch of liars appear on the stand. They all start to fall away. Harshman looks like a paid liar when you hear that video. Walla looks like exactly what the, she is a woman who's pretty, preoccupied with crime stories. She's listening to him for 90 minutes at a time. And they start to say, she's not a doctor. She wasn't treating this man.

She was trying to get evidence against him. When you hear those calls, that's the logical connection that the jury will naturally make. Says they could hear with their own eyes. He went after Dr. Wallet as well, the prison psychologist, arguing that the jury would have viewed her differently if it had heard the full context of Alan's behavior. Lehmann pointed to a report describing Alan as naked, refusing food and fluids, covered in feces, eating his own feces, and experiencing a flight of ideas.

The report described a sudden alteration in his medical behavior and his medical status and a working diagnosis involving severe depression with psychotic features. So Lehman's point was that the psychosis didn't just begin when a doctor happened to document it, the symptoms were already there. But Judge Vedek reminded him that much of the evidence had actually been admitted at trial, which is true. The jury did hear about all of that, about his mental state. But Lehman and the eating of the feces, the jury heard all about it.

But Lehman said the problem was the way the evidence was presented. The defense believed the jury was given a misleading picture because it saw the videos without the audio. They saw the videos, right? They saw them. Yes. And it sends such a misleadier. because it looks like he's being cared for rather than disregarded when you hear what he's saying oh you got a little poop here on you is literally

what what the dismissiveness of the guards for a man who and I'd like with their own doctor that dr. Martin when he deems him seriously mentally ill and gravely disabled says on April 4th began to show sudden alterations in his mental status and behavior he has been naked not eating his meals and not drinking adequate fluids. His body is covered in feces. He has been eating his own feces. His speech is marked with flight of ideas and tangential.

His current working diagnosis is high depression with psychotic features. And he makes, because he finds that the day he shows up with April 14th. Psychosis doesn't begin the day the doctor shows up. That was admitted, though. That was admitted into evidence, right? I mean, we were talking about the videos. And then they parade a bunch of witnesses to say, oh, we got it wrong, that he was cogent, he was clear, to say what the state says is that, oh, that was just the bad day. The next day things were good. And then the bad day is when he was saying false stuff. But the good days when he's saying the stuff we want to say. You hear the audio. If you get to present the context, the jury. the jury's not going to deny their own ears.

So every audio, every video, every video that you offered was admitted into evidence, except the court said no audio. Is that right? That's my understanding. That's my reading of the record, Your Honor. And that brought the argument to one of the final major issues, whether the defense had actually been allowed to present all of the, of the evidence it needed to change the state's case. That's ultimately the question. Judge Brown briefly

stopped the discussion and made a point of acknowledging the families that were there, the victims. She said they were, quote, a thousand percent sympathetic to the families of Abby and Libby, and that this should not have happened. But she said, the question before the court was whether Richard Allen received a fair trial. So we are a thousand percent sympathetic to the families of these victims, this should not have happened. The question before us is, did this individual get a fair trial? What's your response? We want to know that you got the right guy. We can't live in a world where the real killer goes free. And we want to know, make sure we got it right. One of two things, we live in a world where one of two things happened here. A pharmacy tech with no criminal history

and goes out for a walk to watch a stock ticker and look at fish and decides to gruesomely murder two girls. Or we live in a world where the police, through confirmation bias, failed to find the right guy. Because you know what? There's more than one person can be on that trail. And your whole story is based upon the belief that the man who came forward is the killer rather than the man you never heard from. The verdict is not reliable and we all hurt the victims more than anybody if we didn't get the real killer and the evidence and its cumulative effect is undeniable. We do not have a reliable verdict.

The jury never saw the sketch that proved that Blair saw someone else on the bridge. It never heard the ritual explanation for the crime scene which showed how someone else committed the murders, how the state's investigation was marred by confirmation bias and proved how thin their case truly was. It never heard Alan's expert testimony that ballistics matching is junk science. Never heard the most powerful attack on the credibility of his confessions.

It never heard the unimpeached cell phone data. And it never heard the truth about Weber's van. What was it, what's the truth about Weber's van? He didn't drive, he wasn't in the area in the time that matches up with their miracle timeline. Their whole timeline is that his van scared Rick Allen and therefore he took the girls and moved him somewhere else. Was there mention of a van at all in any of the discovery?

I would assume so, Your Honor, but I don't know. Well, actually, I'm almost certain there was. The whole reason that we know that their claims about Weber's van are false is because he was looked at as a suspect because he's a man in the area, just like we're saying there would start with our other men in the area, and they look at him and they use a peeing from his cell phone to alibi him. So... They don't really know about the van

until Alan himself talks about the van. Is that accurate? No, I think they knew exactly what Weber drove, that they investigated it because they had to clear him. Because Weber, that's why they had an FBI pinged. That's why the FBI was pinged. That's why, in the motion to correct errors,

that they have the FBI's file on Weber, is because they had to clear the guy. You knew about this, though, before. And isn't that right? before the trial. You knew about the FBI ping, you knew about the video of Weber's van driving. They knew that the state was lying and they were trying to prove that the state had lied on the stand. They were trying to prove that. I don't know if they had the FBI particular, yeah, they knew. They knew They knew that Weber had been cleared.

You knew. The defense knew. And they tried like crazy to get that information in. They did, repeatedly. So why is it a motion to correct error when you knew ahead of time about this? Well, we were trying to prove that they were liars. And the judge wasn't letting them do that. And so they put in additional evidence that proves their liars.

They lied. They said that he drove straight home. He said he drove home. And then they said it absolutely lines up. And that's just not true. It doesn't absolutely line up. And they tried like crazy to prove that. With regards to Tobin.

Oh, sorry. So the hearing is over here. And then after that, Judge Vedic told Lehman, his time was up, ending things honestly a little abruptly. They thanked both sides for their arguments. They thanked us in the courtroom for, it felt like a classroom in college. They said, thank you.

We didn't hear a peep from all of you. You guys were so good. And with that, the hearing was over. And so now what happens next? The appellate court has to decide whether any of these alleged errors individually or together are serious enough to affect the reliability and fairness of Richard Allen's conviction. And that will be the next thing that we find out. Until then, may justice be served.